The influence of verbal protocol methods on children's mental computation

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to investigate the validity of children's verbal reports about the cognitive processes underlying their mental arithmetic. A within-subject comparison was made with respect to the data that could be obtained with retrospective verbal report, concurrent verbal report, and no verbal report conditions. The results of the investigation indicated that children's verbal reports of strategy use may not be veridical. The source of the nonveridicality was incompleteness rather than fabrication. It was also found that immediately retrospective and concurrent verbal reports increased students' solution accuracy relative to a no verbal report condition. Thus, the primary mental operations underlying children's mental arithmetic are reactive to giving verbal reports. It was concluded that empirical checks for reactivity and refinements to protocol procedures to reveal the progression of strategy use are needed in future research.